


La douleur exquise

by Bananaramas



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Author Watched Love Eater and Cannot Properly Process her Feelings, Character Study, F/M, Light Angst, Luka just wants to be loved, Season/Series 03 Spoilers, Unrequited Love, or is it owo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-16 13:14:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21036809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bananaramas/pseuds/Bananaramas
Summary: Luka ponders his relationship with a certain blue-eyed, pigtailed girl.





	La douleur exquise

Loving her was like waking up.

Luka Couffaine was an uncomplicated boy, funnily enough. There were only two things in this world that he loved: his family and music.

Luka had discovered his love for music early on when he’d heard Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy” playing on the radio when he was eight. His mother found him belting out the lyrics in his bedroom, on his knees, air-guitaring the solo like he was Prince himself. It was electrifying.

His mother bought him his first guitar the next day, and the rest was history 

Day and night, Luka played, never giving up even when others told him it was futile to continue. His mother never stopped him from following his dreams, encouraging him to chase his passions in life, and not to listen to what other people had to say.

Needless to say, he never forgot her words.

It was lonely, though. He never had many friends, and the ones he did have were either through Juleka or through his mother. He was happy, of course, he was by no means miserable or ungrateful for the life he had been given. But sometimes, he felt this hole in his heart where something should be, a tune missing as he strummed the chords to a melancholic melody, of a feeling he could not place. He would frown at himself in the mirror, wondering what he could be missing in his near idealistic life. He certainly never expected it to be a brown-eyed, jet black-haired girl that wore pigtails.

For a long time, Luka Couffaine believed that music was his therapy, that music made up who he was, and that music gave him everything he needed.

And eventually, music gave him Marinette Dupain-Cheng one sunny afternoon, when he played for her, and subsequently his heart, too.

She was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. She was cute, and sweet, and had the kindest soul he had ever known. She would fight tooth and nail for those she loved, and that included him. He wasn’t exactly sure when he became part of the circle of people she deemed worth protecting, but he was happy nonetheless.

Marinette, above all else, would sacrifice for others. Luka had lost count the number of times she would drop everything to help someone, even at her own expense. He wondered how she found the room in her heart for this many people, but he didn’t have to look very far once he met Tom Dupain and Sabine Cheng.

Luka prided himself on two things: his wisdom, and his observant nature. In the time he had known Marinette, he had watched her not only do all she could to help others but also do next to nothing to help herself. She was always putting on a front when others were around, never batting an eye when they asked her for a favour, and even though she never told him, he could tell that something dark was bubbling beneath the surface of that sugary sweet facade. Something she kept bottled up and tucked away, never to be seen by anyone.

Marinette, he learned, did not like to show weakness.

Naturally, Luka found himself drawn to her more and more. Ever since the day she stumbled into his room, a stuttering mess, he couldn’t get her out of his head. He started to write his tune for her, the one that had been playing in his head the day they met. He still didn’t have the whole thing down on paper, but he believed he was close to it.

He discovered her crush on the model early on in their friendship. He was by no means jealous or envious; Adrien was a nice boy and a whiz on the keyboard. He didn’t despise him for any reason, but he was worried about the implications that would result from Marinette’s crush on him, especially after seeing him with that Kagami girl.

Luka was flattered when Marinette asked him to skate with her, but he soon discovered the reasoning behind her request. He tried his best to make her happy, and distract her from the burgeoning couple not too far from them, but still, he caught her eyes drifting towards the pair, almost audibly hearing her heart break in two.

He didn’t want to let her go, he really didn’t. But she looked so happy, so overjoyed to go after the one she loved, he couldn’t say no, couldn’t hold her back when he knew she loved him so much. He only wished she would feel the same for him one day as well.

Being akumatized was not something Luka ever saw for himself, as he believed he was a very calm and collected person and not someone who resorted to anger easily. But seeing Bob Roth tear Marinette a new one, and her deer in a headlight face as he stomped all over her and their friend’s hard work.

Luka saw red that day, nothing, and then red again.

To no one's surprise, when he came to, he had no recollection of the experience. He was forever grateful for Ladybug and Cat Noir, not only for saving him, but for putting that wretched man to justice. He could only imagine Marinette’s reaction when she saw it live, and that alone brought a smile to his face.

When she pulled him aside right before Kitty Section’s performance later that day, he wasn’t sure what to make of the whole ordeal. It still haunted him what his akumatized self could have possibly said to her, but he hoped his words of sincerity thereafter would mend whatever ill feelings she held towards him, even if he was under the influence of Hawk Moth.

He supposed anyone would call it a love declaration, and perhaps it was, but to him, he just wanted to show her that she was special, that he saw her for who she truly was, and that she didn’t need to hide from everyone.

He noticed a shift in their relationship that day. She smiled around him more, laughed like she meant it, and he couldn’t have been gladder. He was falling hard and fast for her, and he saw no signs of stopping. She was the most amazing person he had ever met, a melody in his heart that played louder and louder each day.

He knew she was coming to an impasse. The day he was enlisted by Ladybug to don the snake miraculous gave him an ego booster, but also showed him that someone as important as Ladybug saw potential in him. She recognized that he was worth something, and really, that’s all any of us ever need.

His mind wandered to his pigtailed friend, and what she may think of him if she knew he was a superhero. Of course, he would never tell her who he really was, or that he aided Ladybug and Cat Noir in any capacity, but sometimes he allowed himself to be a little selfish in hoping that she might see him the way Ladybug did, that instead of seeing green and blonde, she would see blue.

He knew that Marinette would eventually have to make a choice. He had overheard her conversation with Alya and Kagami about the nature of her relationship with him and Adrien, and he couldn’t deny that she had a point. Eventually, she would have to decide who had her heart, and he couldn’t shake the feeling of doubt he felt once he knew that fact.

No matter who she chose, though, he knew one thing, and that was he would always be there for Marinette, friend or otherwise. She may not have thought of him in that way, but she had his heart anyways. He never asked more of her, and she could always come to him if she needed anything.

That was why when Marinette interrupted his daily deliveries that day, he dropped everything (literally) to help her. She sobbed, explaining to him how hard it was balancing everything in her life, and she felt it was falling apart. That she could never truly be who she wanted. He suspected this had to do with something else, something far greater than the both of them. For some reason, he sensed it was somehow connected to a certain red and black polka-dotted yo-yo slinging hero.

Luka knew this was going to take healing. Something had happened to her since he last saw her that day. She was so happy only a few hours ago; he had finally found the melody that matched her completely, she at long last seemed to be seeing him as more than a friend, and nothing could have been more perfect. So what could have possibly occurred in such a short time to make his beloved Marinette so distraught?

As he held her close to him, he knew words would be of little effect to her now. He was always better with his guitar. But he had to try. Had to do something, anything, to make it known to her that she wasn’t alone.

“It’s alright Marinette. You can tell me everything, or nothing if you prefer. You can be yourself with me, you know. Just yourself.”

That day, he knew, as his bike fell onto the cobblestone streets of Paris, his guitar and his helmet tumbling out of the basket, that the crying girl in his arms would come before all else in his life. He would make it his mission to be by her side whenever he could, even if it meant costing him something else he wasn’t ready to lose.

Loving her was like waking up.

LA FIN

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/andithewandi)  
and follow my [stan account](https://twitter.com/kekejoonie) if you like BTS and other kpop related things
> 
> <3


End file.
